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In this by-invitation-only video, Ohio’s governor, John Kasich, sings praises to “the fighters of freedom, the grassroots leaders of American for Prosperity (AFP)”. While he was at it, he might have well just given a big thanks to Charles and David Koch, the financial sponsors of AFP, as well as large donors to the governor’s campaign.

So why exactly is Kasich thankful for Americans for Prosperity?

Well, Kasich applauds their support in helping with the privatization of the state’s economy. The new program known as JobsOhio is supposed “to be able to move at the speed of business”. But while it’s promoting corporate profits, JobsOhio will require privatizing five prisons, doing away with the state’s estate tax, and cutting funding for schools and local governments. Townships are expected to lose 50% of their funding from the state, while schools lose about 11.5%. That equates to roughly 10,000 teachers.

Another accomplishment Kasich celebrates could not have happened without AFP’s support is "government union reform". Translation: union-busting that prevents public workers (including teachers, firefighters, and police officers) from collective bargaining for benefits and from going on strike.

So it is no wonder that Governor Kasich did not want to make this video public. Thanking a group for helping him to cut thousands of jobs, limit workers’ rights, privatize state services, and put a significant tax burden on local governments certainly won’t be a great boost to his 33% approval rating.

So, the Koch brothers-funded astroturfing front group Americans For Prosperity's Michigan branch has been busy ... trying to scare people into opposing the construction of a local bridge the group is fighting by putting fake eviction notices on their houses.

Bearing the words “Eviction Notice” in large type, the bogus notices told homeowners their properties could be taken by the Michigan Department of Transportation to make way for the New International Trade Crossing bridge project. The NITC is the subject of debate in Lansing, and Americans for Prosperity is lobbying heavily against it.

“It was meant to startle people,” Scott Hagerstrom, AFP’s Michigan director, said of the notices on Tuesday.

Most companies don’t go telling consumers that their product is too expensive – but that’s exactly what the energy industry is doing. Reverse psychology is an interesting phenomenon, and most people are aware when people try it on them. Yet that is one way to describe the newest trick the energy industry is trying to pull on the American people. Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded oil-industry front group, is embarking on a bus tour to remind everybody that gas prices are very high – and that President Obama and too much regulation are to blame.

It’s a novel strategy: find a straw man to bear the brunt of consumer frustrations, so that the energy industry seems like it’s on their side. Then, they will be able to make a populist argument to eliminate regulations, encourage pro-corporate policies and increase their profits. Brilliant!

However, the AfP and their energy-industry funders must be crossing their fingers, hoping that Americans don’t understand the way the oil market actually works. The reality is that because gas prices are dependent on the price of oil, and oil is priced and sold on a global market, less regulation – or more domestic drilling for that matter – wouldn’t help significantly bring down prices at the pump, especially in the short term. What it would do is make oil barons such as the Koch brothers even richer.

Speculation is the likely real cause of high prices, but you won’t be hearing about that on AfP’s tour. A new Think Progress investigation shows how heavily involved the Koch brothers are in artificially manipulating oil prices – and surely they would like to keep it that way. And just a couple of weeks ago, Rep. Elijah Cummings and the other Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a report on the increasing role of speculation on rising gas prices.

If Americans really want relief from high gas prices, we should demand a different narrative from AfP and their “drill, baby, drill” creed. The pain at the pump is too severe for another self-serving bus tour.

We’ve seen Koch-funded politicians across the country introduce bills that dismantle public-sector unions at the state level. Now it seems they’ve got their eye on a bigger prize, attempting to destroy unions at the federal level as well.

On Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce held a hearing on “Official Time” which the government defines as “authorized, paid time off from assigned Government duties to represent a union or its bargaining unit employees.” Unions use this time to complete tasks such as setting safety requirements, overtime assignments, and dispute-resolution procedures, all of which are necessary for a productive workforce.

Official time was granted by the Civil Reform Act of 1978. This time is strictly regulated, and can only be used on activities that both labor and management deem reasonable, necessary, and in the public interest.

Despite the fact that official time costs only $130 million per year -- significantly less expensive than having outsiders handle arbitration and other issues that would arise without official time -- and has survived and been deemed useful through three Republican administrations, the GOP is now considering cutting it due to “budgetary restraints.”

It’s no surprise that the Koch brothers have invested heavily in those who are now trying to chip away at federal employee unions. The congressman who brought up this issue, Rep. Phil Gingrey, counts Koch Industries as one of his top 20 contributors. Of the “expert witnesses” at the hearing discussing official time, two were from organizations heavily funded by the Koch brothers. Witnesses from both the Heritage Foundation and Competitive Enterprise Institute were present, organizations that received 4,115,571 and $700,499 respectively in 2009.

Federal unions are required, by law, to represent all employees in certain agencies or positions, even if they don’t pay their union dues. In exchange for this, they are allowed “official time” in which to complete some union work. John Gage, the National President for the American Federation of Government Employees, stated the ramifications of ending official time clearly, revealing that ending official time would nearly completely take away the collective bargaining rights of federal employees, making it impossible for unions to effectively function.

My predictions as to the take-away messages of these hearings are based on Chairman Issa’s predictable witness list. As we’ve noted with great frequency, Issa calls industry and think-tank “experts” to the stand who will tell him what he wants to hear, and today’s lineup is no exception. The Heritage Foundation will be featured prominently this afternoon, as well as the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Interestingly, both of these very conservative think tanks have received large amounts of funding from the Koch brothers – to the tune of $4,115,571 and $700,499 respectively in 2009. Yes, these are the very same Koch brothers who quietly fund the tea party and a plethora of right wing politicians and organizations. Check out the Center for American Progress’ report and PFAW’s Koch Brothers Fact Sheet for many, many more details.

John Mashburn, executive director of the Carleson Center for Public Policy, will be testifying in the welfare hearing. His organization, which might as well be the Ronald Reagan fan club, wants to reduce federal assistance programs to a series of block grants administered by the states:

The first order of business for the CCPP will be to help reverse the damage done to the 1996 welfare reform. Then, it will concentrate on extending the successful design of returning power and responsibility to the states for other welfare programs, specifically Medicaid and Food Stamps.

Agenda items:

Restore the integrity of the 1996 welfare reform.

Develop a plan to emulate the 1996 model to block grant Medicaid to the states.

Develop a plan to block grant the Food Stamp program to the states.

Develop a plan to consolidate the 180+ additional categorical federal means-tested programs and replace them with finite block grants to the states.

As many Republicans are discovering back home in their districts, applying this goal to Medicare is proving to be rather unpopular. It’s concerning that other important social programs could face the same treatment, especially since the beneficiaries of these programs don’t carry the same political clout as senior citizens.

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty officially launched his presidential campaign today in Iowa. Although he has been campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire for a couple of years now, you may not know much about him. He has low name recognition and low poll numbers, and his book Courage to Stand is not selling that well. But journalists from The New Republic and National Review think he could well be the GOP candidate. So it's worth taking a good look at his record and his far-right ideology.

Part of Pawlenty's appeal is supposed to be that he is from Minnesota, and was elected as a conservative in a bluish-purplish state. Some people wrongly assume that being from Minnesota automatically makes him some kind of moderate. In fact, Pawlenty is campaigning as a hard-core, across-the-board conservative.

He makes appeals to Religious Right voters by talking up his faith and appearing on even the most offensive radio shows, like that of the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, who is surely one of the most extreme, hateful and bigoted personalities in Christian radio. Pawlenty helped raise money for Ralph Reed's "Faith and Freedom Coalition" in Iowa. And he appointed an education commissioner who equated teaching of evolution with teaching of creationism but thought teaching sharing in kindergarten was "socialist."

Pawlenty's attacks on reproductive rights please anti-abortion advocates. A National Review Online blogger says Pawlenty "may be the strongest pro-life candidate" in 2012. As governor, Pawlenty signed legislation erecting barriers to women seeking abortions, including a required waiting period and anti-choice lecture. He has spoken at anti-choice rallies, looking forward to a day when Roe v. Wade would be overturned, saying: "We have a dream today that someday soon this will not be an anniversary of sadness, but an anniversary of justice restored."

Pawlenty has also fine-tuned his campaign and his record to be more attractive to the far-right Republican Party of the Tea Party era. He once actively supported regional action to address climate change and even filmed an environmental commercial. But now he apologizes, calls his former position "stupid," and has joined the ranks of climate change deniers. Pawlenty once voted for a gay rights bill as a state legislator, but then disavowed it and embarked on a journey that Think Progress described as "evolving homophobia." And he is a vocal supporter of the current effort to amend Minnesota's constitution to ban gay couples from getting married.

Pawlenty doesn't even support legal protections short of marriage, like those that could be provided by civil unions. He went so far as to sign an Orwellian letter defending the Family Research Council, the American Family Association and other anti-gay groups against criticism that they were promoting hate.

Pawlenty appears at Tea Party events and appeals to Tea Partiers with his opposition to health care reform. He denounces "Obamacare" as unconstitutional and one of the worst pieces of legislation in the history of the country. He compares the health care reform law to drug dealing and has joined legal efforts to prevent it from being implemented. In 2006, Pawlenty, in what opponents called election-year politics, pushed a wide array of proposals to crack down on immigration. Last year, he advocated amending the Constitution to deny citizenship to the American-born children of undocumented immigrants. Speaking to a Hispanic Republican group in January, he fudged his position, but said, "We can't have wide swaths of the country nodding or winking or looking the other way to broad violations of the law," rhetoric that echoes the "anti-amnesty" language used by opponents of comprehensive immigration reform.

And Pawlenty works hard to appeal to the economic and corporate right. He wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal last December slamming government employees and decrying a "silent coup, an inside job engineered by self-interested politicians and fueled by campaign contributions." The nonpartisan PolitiFact rated the column and its claims about government workers "Pants on Fire" -- its most-lying "Truth-o-meter" rating.

Pawlenty's self-portrait doesn't always mesh with reality. He rails against the "immoral debt" and touts his record as a governor of holding the line on growth in government. But in fact, as governor, he used short-term budget tricks that "left the state with a $5-billion projected deficit, one of the highest in the nation as a percentage of the state's general fund." He railed against the Obama administration's stimulus bill but then asked for $236 million from it.

He portrays himself as an anti-tax champion, but that's not how many Minnesotans experienced him. A state revenue department study in 2009 found that Minnesotans earning less than $129,879 saw their tax rates increase under Pawlenty. "Don't let anyone tell you Governor Pawlenty didn't raise taxes," said Sen. Al Franken. "It's about whom he raised them on. He raised them on lower- and middle-income families all across the state in order to pay for our kids' education."

Pawlenty promises right-wing groups that as president he will appoint "strict constructionist" judges -- code for judges with an 18th-century view of Americans' rights and interests. Last year he bypassed his state's Commission on Judicial Selection to appoint to a judgeship an attorney with strong Religious Right connections who served as counsel for the Minnesota Family Council in an anti-gay marriage case.

Back in 2008, when Pawlenty was frequently mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, he was criticized for being too boring on television, maybe a bit too "Minnesota nice." So the 2012 Pawlenty has learned how to make himself sufficiently aggressive for the GOP zeitgeist. In speeches at conservative conferences, Pawlenty denigrates President Obama, accusing him of appeasing the nation's enemies. In his campaign launch message, Pawlenty said President Obama lacks both understanding of the nation's problems and the courage to address them.

While these may all be traits that will help Pawlenty win the Republican nomination, it's hard for me to imagine that a majority of American voters would agree that what we really need in the White House is a trash-talking, flip-flopping, science-denying, abortion-criminalizing, gay-rights-bashing, Religious Right-embracing politician who is so eager to get elected that he'll promise the far right just about anything. He even faked a southern accent when speaking to conservatives in Iowa, provoking well-deserved mockery back in Minnesota.

Pawlenty's backers are convinced that his polling numbers are low only because Americans haven't gotten to know him yet. But as Nate Silver noted back in November, Pawlenty was not that popular among those who know him best of all:

... a survey of Republican primary voters in Minnesota -- where Mr. Pawlenty is the governor and where his name recognition is near-universal -- showed him getting only 19 percent of the Republican primary vote there (although this was good for a nominal first place with Ms. Palin placing at 18 percent). Mr. Pawlenty's approval rating in Minnesota is also a tepid 47 percent.

The Hill reports that Democrats and Republicans in Congress have reached an agreement on the amount of money to cut from next year’s federal budget, just before tomorrow’s deadline for avoiding a government shutdown. Great news, right? Not so fast: while Congress has agreed on an amount to cut from the deficit next year, House Republicans are still willing to hold up the budget and shut down the government over funding to Planned Parenthood and clean air programs:

“The numbers are basically there,” Reid said. “But I’m not nearly as optimistic — and that’s an understatement — as I was 11 hours ago. The numbers are extremely close. Our differences are no longer over how much savings we get on government spending.

“The only thing holding up an agreement is an ideology,” Reid told the Senate’s presiding chair. “I’m sorry to say, Mr. President, my friend the Speaker and the Republican leadership have drawn a line in the sand, not dealing with a deficit we know we have to deal with.

“The two main issues holding this matter up are the choice of women, reproductive rights, and clean air,” Reid said. “These matters have no place in a budget bill.”

Any member of Congress who says his or her primary goal is to reduce the deficit and improve the economy should have to explain this. A government shutdown would be disastrous for the economy. It would hurt Americans, and it would almost certainly result in lost jobs. That House Republicans are willing to inflict economic suffering just so they can make a point about contraception and lend a hand to corporate polluters shows just how little they actually care about the deficit or about job creation.

The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill today that would severely restrict reproductive rights, including undercutting women’s ability to buy their own insurance coverage for abortion.

Lawmakers stripped the bill, H.R. 3, of some of its most controversial provisions, including language that would redefine rape, and changed it to clarify that insurance must cover “life-saving” abortions.

But, as Amanda Terkel writes in the Huffington Post, the sweeping anti-choice bill is still troubling:

Arons points out that H.R. 3 would still impose "a permanent, blanket prohibition on any and all federal spending for abortion care," whereas under current law, only specific programs have such restrictions and they must be renewed every year.

The bill would also deny tax credits to businesses that offer employees health insurance plans that happen to cover abortion care, as well as disallow any medical deductions for expenses related to abortion. Women would not be able to set aside their own money in pre-tax health accounts for abortion coverage.

The revised H.R. 3 would also still hit the District of Columbia particularly hard. In 2009, Congress voted to lift the District's abortion funding restrictions and allow it to make its own choices. Smith's bill denies the Capitol "home rule."

"Each of these provisions represents an expansion, not simply a codification of abortion funding restrictions that now exist in federal law," Maloney said.

In the Huffington Post today, People For President Michael Keegan looks at the battle over censorship at the Smithsonian and what it means for the coming right-wing culture wars. The fight over the Smithsonian, he writes, is “just the beginning”:

As the newly empowered House GOP gears up to start culture wars on issues from reproductive rights for women to religious freedom for American Muslims, there's an important lesson to be learned from what happened this winter at the Smithsonian. Institutions and individuals will continue to come under attack from the right's powerful extremist-to-media-to-politician echo chamber. But, as the Smithsonian's experience showed once again, there is little to be gained by caving in to this loud and usually dishonest bullying. Clough's attempt at compromise -- instantly removing a work of art from an important exhibit -- only drew louder threats to censor the exhibit as a whole, while causing some of the Smithsonian's strongest supporters to lose trust in the institution. Despite what most might hope, the right is not going to stop its culture war campaigns anytime soon. The only thing the rest of us can do is aggressively tell the truth, unapologetically stand on principle, and refuse to back down.

Earlier this week, protesters—including representatives from People For— gathered on the National Mall to protest the censorship and call for Clough’s resignation. Campus Progress recorded the event, including an interview with protest participant Dan Choi, who was one of the most influential voices in the fight to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

Today, in events around the country, Americans marked the anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that diminished the rights of individuals. Tomorrow, we’ll celebrate the 38th anniversary of a decision that took a great step toward recognizing the rights and liberties of individual citizens: Roe v. Wade.

Finally, a quote from Justice Louis Brandeis, who in 1928 spoke of the importance of the Constitution’s protections for individual Americans and our freedom “to be let alone”:

The makers of our Constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness. They recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, of his feelings and of his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone-the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.

Saturday marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This landmark ruling, along with the earlier Griswold v. Connecticut, recognized a constitutional right to privacy and protected a woman's right to make reproductive decisions based on her own life, health, and conscience. Ensuring that women are trusted to make those decisions is a cause that stills needs our support all these years later.

Take action!Donate today to one or more of our partner organizations. January 22 is the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Our Silver Ribbon partners will be organizing a series of calls to action leading up to this anniversary. Check our Take Action section for the latest updates from our partner organizations.

January 22, 2011 will mark the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. This landmark ruling, along with the earlier Griswold v. Connecticut, recognized a constitutional right to privacy and protected a woman's right to make reproductive decisions based on her own life, health, and conscience. Ensuring that women are trusted to make those decisions is a cause that stills needs our support all these years later.

Since the recent election, the opponents of reproductive health care and women’s rights have claimed they speak for America. They do not.

It’s time to express the true voices of America.

It’s time to come together and show our strength.

We need to stand by each other and claim our rights to the legal health care to which we’re entitled.

Join the Silver Ribbon campaign to Trust Women, for Reproductive Rights and Justice.

Wear a Trust Women Silver Ribbon.Make your own Silver Ribbon, or for a $5 donation you can order a Silver Ribbon pin. Wear your Silver Ribbon from January 22nd to February 22nd to show your solidarity.

Take action!Donate today to one or more of our partner organizations. January 22 is the 38th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Our Silver Ribbon partners will be organizing a series of calls to action leading up to this anniversary. Check our Take Action section for the latest updates from our partner organizations.

Yesterday the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 18-10 to approve the Defense authorization bill. This legislation, which includes conditional repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, also takes an important step toward equality in reproductive rights for military women.

Existing law prohibits, in most circumstances, military hospitals from providing abortion care. The ban treats women who have chosen to serve their country, as well as military wives and daughters, as second-class citizens by limiting their constitutionally protected right to choose. And it endangers their health. These women rely on military hospitals for medical care and are often stationed in areas where alternative local medical facilities are inadequate or unavailable. A woman facing an unintended pregnancy may be forced to risk her life by seeking an unsafe abortion or delaying an abortion until she can travel to a location where adequate medical care is available.

The Committee sent a clear message that endangering the health of military women is unacceptable. Should it become law, the new language would allow military women to use their own funds for abortion care at military hospitals.

As we reflect upon the 37th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, I had the privilege of speaking with Rev. Madison Shockley, pastor of the Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, Calif. briefly about the anniversary, health care reform and the Stupak amendment, and why he feels “the struggle still continues and we must be vigilant.”

Stacey (SG): What do you see as the enduring legacy of Roe v. Wade?Rev. Madison Shockley (MS): The major accomplishment of Roe was to establish fairly firmly in our culture that women are full citizens and have the right to control their lives. In a modern society, their lives are no longer pre-determined by the demands of the larger agricultural industrial society that, in times, past determined-child rearing. We’ve left the notion of women as baby factories behind and entered into an era of women as full persons.

SG: Recently, we’ve seen renewed attacks on a woman’s right to choose, particularly within the health care reform bill and the Stupak amendment. MS: Stupak is part of the ongoing strategy of people who opposed full personhood of women. They label themselves as pro-life, which is abhorrent to all of us because we are all pro-life. They are anti-women’s reproductive rights, anti-women’s personhood. This is part of an ongoing effort to impede upon a woman deciding what to do with a woman’s reproductive right. As we are on the brink of providing health care reform, this pokes women in the eye by managing what women do with their reproductive rights. They do that by saying you can be part of this historical movement for health care reform, but you also have to leave your reproductive rights behind.

SG: Why did you feel it was important to travel to Washington, DC to travel lobby against the Stupak amendment?MS: I represent a constituency whose voice is not heard often enough – black men, black clergymen. There are men, and black men, people of faith, African American men and clergy that are strongly committed to women’s reproductive rights and full personhood. I wanted to share my insight, and to represent this underrepresented population of people in this movement.

SG: What are you doing in your church and community to convince people of the need to reject the Stupak amendment?MS: The main thing I want people to know is that the struggle continues and we must be vigilant. In my church, we’ve preached against Stupak on Sunday mornings as an infringement upon the divine personhood of women, and we’ve also done letter writing campaigns. I want my community to know that health care is the best way for all who are concerned about life to achieve the goal of women being able to welcome each pregnancy with joy.

Roe v. Wade established a constitutional right to privacy and protected a woman's right to make reproductive decisions based on her own life, health, and conscience. Today, on the 37th anniversary of this landmark ruling, we face a new call to action.

People For the American Way shares the widely held view that abortion should be safe, rare, and legal. We believe that healthcare reform can and should uphold these principles. Unfortunately, current legislation would do more to restrict the rights of women than it would to protect them.

In the House, health insurance plans that participate in the new exchange would be prohibited from providing full reproductive health benefits to millions of American women. Senate language sets up an unworkable system in which women are forced to purchase abortion coverage separately from other healthcare needs, which violates privacy and stigmatizes abortion, and also has the potential to dissuade insurance companies from offering abortion coverage in the first place.

While the Senate has not gone as far as the House in its restrictions, neither bill upholds President Obama’s promise that those who are happy with their healthcare before reform will be able to keep it after. It is critical that whatever he is asked to sign is, at the very least, abortion neutral. Now is the time to defend women’s rights – not roll them back.

Please stand up to right-wing activists who want to hold healthcare reform hostage.

Recently, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) accused President Obama as being “an enemy of humanity” in a speech at the How to Take Back America Conference. Rep. Franks said:

We shouldn't be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity."

Could Franks be piggy-backing on Rep. Wilson’s “you lie” outburst during President Obama’s speech on health care in front of congress? What strikes me most about this quote (and something that may receive less media attention) is that Franks uses the abelist term “insane” to describe President Obama. I want to pose a question: how many House members have publicly called the President a word to describe someone living with mental illness before President Obama’s term in office?

PFAW President Michael Keegan’s made the following statement in response to Rep. Franks’ comments:

Rep. Trent Franks' remarks at the How to Take Back America Conference show a stunning lack of respect for our president and the office of the presidency itself. Rep. Franks is following the lead of Glenn Beck, but he's a member of Congress, not a talk show host, and he should act like one.

Americans, and especially members of Congress, should be able to disagree passionately about politics without making wild and irresponsible accusations. President Obama's views on reproductive rights are supported by a majority of Americans, and it is outrageous for Rep. Franks to claim that anyone who holds such views is unfit for public office and an "enemy of humanity."

In case you aren't already convinced that next month's election is pretty frickin' important, here's something else to consider: the next president will almost certainly have the power to shape the future of the Supreme Court for decades to come.

What does that mean for Roe v. Wade — and the future of reproductive rights in this country? We put together a short video that walks through some scary math. Click here to check it out.

Pop quiz, fellow progressives: how do you refer to the two sides of the abortion debate?

Did you say "pro-life" and "pro-choice"? Those are the terms I generally use when talking about the issue too. And, as I was reminded by a conversation between colleagues this morning, it doesn't make much sense.

In reality, people who are against reproductive rights don't have a monopoly on being pro-life. As a colleague of mine said this morning, "We're all pro-life."

I think you'd be pretty hard-pressed to find somebody who really thinks there should be more abortions. Progressives, conservatives, moderates, people of no political persuasion whatsoever: I think we're all agreed there.